As a contractor, my tools are usually dropped, fall off roofs and ladders, have heavy things fall on them, get left out in the rain, get stolen, mispl aced and about 10 other things occur before I have to worry about warranty issues.
However, I bought a pair of ultra compact 12v Li drills about 4 or 5 years ago when they first came out. I bought them to use on my kitchen work as t hey work great to drive tiny hinge screws, drill the holes for pulls, and t hey are just dandy inside a cabinet when replacing or adjusting drawer hard ware. Both we $99 with on battery each, and a charger. They are fine litt le drills.
But the batteries finally died. I took the to the local HD as instructed a nd had a really bad time. The "tool guy" had to look at them, make his det ermination, write a report on his findings and then make a suggestion as to what repairs MIGHT be authorized. He told me that it could take him a mon th in the store to get to them, and if they were found to be in warranty, i t could take another month to have it certified by the national repair depo t, and then if it was the batteries ONLY, then they could possibly ship new ones to me in another 10 days to 2 weeks after that. So the whole process could take as much as 2 1/2 months! I was shocked. The tool guy did a cu rsory inspection and agreed that when new batteries were put in the old dri lls they both worked fine. When the old batteries were put in a new test c harger, they showed as defective. However, he determined the issue needed more research on his part. (Clever man... I thought for a moment I was at t he monkey cage at the zoo...)
I called the national number to tell them what was going on. They told me that they were tired of being blamed for the long wait times for warranty r esolution and they were more tired of people calling to yell at them for st ore related issues. With their help they told me how and what to say (thei r corporate buzz words) to the store manager to get the project off center. It worked!
From start to finish of this episode I had two new batteries in my hands in 3 1/2 weeks. But I wasn't through.
The batteries came with a stern warning to register them within 90 days or there would be no further battery warranty. I tried several times to regis ter, and then contacted them by email as instructed on their website. They didn't realize that you couldn't access their registration screens after t he tool and its parts were registered. The reason was that anyone could ch ange their serial numbers to tools found in pawn shops, etc. without having bought the tool new. So my CS email response was for me to simply go the website and register.
After a while, I gave up and called national customer service again. They lady on the other end of the phone sighed pretty heavily and told me that I couldn't register them myself and a phone call was required. On a previou sly registered tool only Ridgid CS could modify any information. So today, she took my info over the phone and my account was updated within the half hour.
So the moral is, register the tools correctly, know that they will honor th eir warranty in some cases, and know you will have to work for it as well a s be patient. That being said, HD/Ridgid are the only guys that will warran t tools for more than a few months (most not at all) for contractor use.
Hey... at least it worked, and I have my two favorite mini drills back!
Robert